louis vuitton belts represents one of the biggest steps in 60 years toward modernizing flu-vaccine manufacturing in the U.S. It uses new technology to grow flu viruses in vats of cells derived from dog kidneys, and uses these Louis Vuitton multicolor monogram leather GOLDEN LV LOGO PLAQUE viruses to make vaccine. The decades-old process involves growing the virus in chicken eggs.
Novartis says the new approach could shave four to six weeks off the time needed to make each shot. The plant has other advantages: If a deadly avian-flu virus hit, it could kill scores of chickens and endanger the supply of eggs needed to make vaccine the old-fashioned way. Cell-culture technology removes that risk.
Novartis’s new plant is just one element of a bigger modernization strategy that will take years to unfold. It has taken the Swiss pharmaceutical Louis Vuitton multicolor monogram leather BRASS ROUND bucklE BEL giant more than three years to build the plant and fine-tune the technology. And the company must carry out more tests on its equipment and vaccine before it can start mass producing the shots in the U.S., even though it already has a cell-culture factory in Germany.
Even when the new Novartis plant is up and running, flu viruses that grow slowly in eggs, as does the current H1N1 virus, may also grow slowly in cells, meaning production may not be much faster, scientists warn.
Cell-culture technology “is not the end game for us,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. government’s National Institute of Allergy and Louis Vuitton multicolor monogram leather BRASS ROUND bucklE BEL Infectious Diseases. His institute is spending $262 million this year on influenza research, including research on a new generation of vaccines that can be made without having to grow a virus.
Protein Sciences Corp., of Meriden, Conn., received a $35 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services in June to develop a next-generation flu vaccine that doesn’t depend on growing the virus, but inserts genetic material from a flu virus into another virus that infects insect cells. The infected insect cells produce proteins that are then used to create a vaccine for humans. Such a shot is “a year or two [away] at the most,” Dr. Fauci said. A Food and Drug Administration Louis Vuitton MONOGRAM PATTERN leather belt advisory panel narrowly voted last week against approval of the vaccine, asking for more studies.
The government began investing heavily in flu vaccine after the outbreak of avian flu in 2003, and then a shortage of seasonal-flu vaccine in 2004 when a large manufacturer suffered a contamination problem. HHS has put $1.56 billion into cell-based projects like the new Novartis plant.